Full Spectrum

Radiohead - In Rainbows

So, is it actually any good then? This being Radiohead of course, there are some fairly characteristic and dependable features of ‘In Rainbows’. Like its immediate predecessors, it merges the band’s preoccupations with conventional rock, glitchy electronica, jazz and contemporary composition, but on this occasion perhaps with a greater emphasis on rock instrumentation. Drums and guitars feature prominently, but rarely in a straightforward way. In essence then, ‘In Rainbows’ traverses fairly similar terrain to that already charted by ‘Hail To The Thief’, providing evolution in the band’s approach and processes, and providing an intelligent amalgamation of many of their creative ideas. Whilst it’s arguable that the group are no longer making great strides during the gestation periods between albums, they’ve certainly now found a happy hybrid sound that defies restrictive classification.

Whilst, controversially it would appear, I still rate ‘Hail…’ very highly – it’s at least the Radiohead album I most enjoy - ‘In Rainbows’ does reveal it as a little unfocussed and scattershot. The most impressive aspect of this very accomplished record is the band’s focus on specific techniques and styles of arrangements. A number of the tracks seem to have been built up from Phil Selway’s spidery, chattering drum loops and there’s also a clear emphasis on low rumbling bass lines and delicately plucked, often arpeggiated guitar parts. Selway also frequently leads the dynamic swells, moving away from a looped rhythm into bolder, swashbuckling cymbal work. If they haven’t made overt sonic progress since ‘Hail To The Thief’, it’s worth remembering exactly how far they have come since ‘Pablo Honey’. That album now sounds not just dull, but also rather quaint when placed next to the palpable futurism of ‘In Rainbows’.

‘In Rainbows’ is also the Radiohead album with the most intelligent use of space. The silences are as significant as the more familiar crescendos, and whilst there are intriguing orchestral flourishes, the defining feel is minimal and skeletal. The group arrangements are deft and thoughtful in delaying the entries of certain instruments – with Colin Greenwood’s bass proving particularly adaptable in this regard. This leaves plenty of room for the studio-enhanced atmospherics and orchestral colourings. Mood and texture are key elements of this vivid, compelling music – it never sounds overly dense or cluttered.

These songs have, in what is now traditional for Radiohead, been developed over a long period of time, and tested in live performance. There’s little sign of the supposed conflict and frustration that tends to result from this process though. Radiohead now sound not just fascinated by the possibilities of the studio for enhancing their compositions, but also a band working supremely well together. Just listen to the nimble interplay between Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood’s guitars on the evocative ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ or the thrilling rush of ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Pieces’.

Also fascinating is the way the group are very effectively subsuming a greater variety of musical stylings into their overall sound. The beautiful ‘House Of Cards’ is ushered in on a deceptively light reggae drum beat, whilst the opening ’15 Steps’ betrays influences from the worlds of techno, dubstep and jazz, its off-kilter 5/4 rhythm immediately taking it to a place where most rock music dare not travel. The first half of ‘All I Need’ perhaps recalls Portishead or Massive Attack, with whom Radiohead have always shared a somewhat claustrophobic, paranoid vision. There’s also more than a hint of the influence of Mark Hollis and Talk Talk in the creative use of space in this music, particularly on the boldly minimal closer ‘Videotape’ or the superb ‘Reckoner’. The latter manages to combine Hollis’ gift for restrained impressionism with an almost funky groove.

Unfortunately, there’s still a massive gulf between the imagination and invention of the group’s music and the poor quality of Thom Yorke’s lyrics. He hasn’t yet spoken much about ‘In Rainbows’ but has said that, if it has a theme, it is about ‘anonymous fear - the kind of fear you get when sitting in a traffic jam and feeling you should be doing something else’. The band’s music now captures this Ballardian disconnection with consummate clarity, but Yorke’s lyrics remain detached fragments of vague rumination, never really capturing feeling and certainly never finding concrete solutions. Whilst his voice is not dehumanised here as it was in parts of ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac’, it’s still very much an integrated part of the wider whole rather than a lead instrument. His enunciation is deliberately poor, and the lyrics are frequently either very loose ideas or simply difficult to determine. I wonder now why he bothers writing them at all. Wordless songs would surely better convey his feelings of alienation and frustration, or would at least do so in a less repetitive manner. There’s a really predictable tone to some of his statements here (‘Don’t get any big ideas, they’re not going to happen’, ‘I’m an animal in your hot car’, ‘You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking’, ‘Everybody leaves if they get the chance’ etc).

Luckily, the sound of his voice is still remarkable in its emotional force. This is particularly the case with his deployment of a pinched, nasal falsetto on the exquisite ‘Nude’, an effect that really heightens the song’s impact. He’s hushed almost to a whisper on the acoustic ‘Faust ARP’, strangely reminiscent of Nick Drake with its Robert Kirby-inspired string arrangement. By way of contrast, he gets unusually aggressive on the strident, angry ‘Bodysnatchers’, the most dirty and distorted work the group have crafted in some time. It sounds as if it was recorded in a tin shack, with Yorke shouting through his grievances from outside the door. Some have emphasised that this is Radiohead’s most straightforwardly melodic record in a while. ‘House Of Cards’ and ‘Nude’ aside, I’m not sure I agree with this – it seems to be far more about effect, implication and mood than about clearly stated themes.

‘OK Computer’ probably remains the group’s most popular release both critically and commercially because of its more reductive ‘anthemic’ qualities, many of which have been borrowed wholesale by numerous less talented artists lacking Radiohead's nuance and sensitivity (Muse, Keane and Coldplay spring immediately to mind). Radiohead have long since jettisoned any pretence at stadium dynamics. Even the decade-old ‘Nude’ sounds much more subtle and controlled in this context than it would have if recorded for ‘OK Computer’. It’s perhaps possible to argue that their music has occasionally risked becoming a little cold and sterile as a result of this thoughtfulness. I have the sense though that ‘In Rainbows’ has restored some humanity and possibly even some soul to their music. ‘Nude’, ‘All I Need’ and, particularly, ‘House Of Cards’ (one of the group’s most affecting songs to date) have a lush romanticism beneath their veneer of existential angst.

It’s tempting to conclude that, ten years on from ‘OK Computer’, ‘In Rainbows’ not only emphasises how prescient that album was in its refusal to follow the prevailing optimistic winds, but also how little the Blair-era actually achieved in changing the political and social landscape of Britain. I suspect, though, that once the cultural and political resonances of ‘OK Computer’ have worn off (if indeed they ever do), this powerful, highly inventive and pleasingly concise record may come to be seen as the pinnacle of Radiohead’s achievements. Like all their previous works, it rewards close attention and repeated listening. It’s too easy to take cheap shots at this band for their vaunting ambitions and unashamed high-mindedness. With U2 disintegrating into a mire of laughable blandness and REM worryingly looking to the superficial, self-regarding sheen of producer Jacknife Lee for their next record, there is no other globally successful rock group working at this level of creativity and invention. I can see a rainbow and it’s worth singing about it.

The NME Hits A New Low

OK, we'll ignore the stupidly small-minded 5/10 review of the actually mind-blowing Dirty Projectors album. We'll also ignore the pathetic, tedious campaign to get the Sex Pistols' 'God Save The Queen' to number one (it was a dreadful record then, it's still dreadful now - and how many more deserving 70s acts could the paper be re-evaluating?).

But we won't ignore the piece on Yeasayer. The band are entirely deserving of the coverage - indeed, credit to the NME for at last jumping on a sensible bandwagon. I've just pre-ordered their 'All Hour Cymbals' album for a bargain price from Play and am keenly anticipating its arrival in a couple of weeks. It's how the paper describes them that has sent me into an apoplectic rage though: 'World Music that doesn't make you want to puke'. What?! What does this really translate as? 'World Music made by White Americans'? Exactly what is the NME trying to say here? What do they define as World Music? The stupendous 2CD 'Best Of Ethiopiques' compilation I still need to blog about? The wonderful Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate collaboration from a couple of years ago that still gets plentiful airplay in my home? Excellent releases from Tinariwen, Orchestra Baobab, the lush tango of Astor Piazolla, or Portuguese Fado music, Fela Kuti, Brotherhood of Breath? The Balkan music that has inspired Beirut, given a mildly positive review elsewhere in the paper? Not to mention a whole range of music from parts of the globe NME journalists won't have heard about, never mind visited. What a bunch of total morons.

Let's Raise a Toast To Helium

Beirut – The Flying Club Cup

The prodigiously talented songwriter Zach Condon has followed up his debut ‘Gulag Orkestar’ with unfashionable rapidity. This time, his songs come with the added bonus of arrangements from former Hidden Cameras member and Arcade Fire collaborator Owen Pallett (with whom I once spent an evening in a Cambridge gay pub, ligger extraordinaire that I was back then). Advance word on ‘The Flying Club Cup’ (a tricky tongue twister of a title, that one) suggested it might display a radical change of direction, veering sharply into the world of French Chanson. Well, that influence is certainly present, not just in the French language song titles, but also with the emphasis on keyboards and accordians over mandolins, ukuleles or guitars. What is most impressive about this record, apart from its admirable brevity at 38 minutes, is the way these new preoccupations have been cleverly subsumed into Condon’s Balkan gypsy sound. This album very much represents an evolution rather than a revolution, which seems entirely appropriate at this stage of Condon’s still burgeoning career.

The drunken wooziness that characterised ‘Gulag Orkestar’ is still a defining feature of Condon’s sound, particularly on the deliberately ragged choruses of ‘A Sunday Smile’ and ‘Cliquot’. Satisfyingly though, Condon’s voice is afforded a much more confident and clear presence here, pushed forward in the mix and with much less of the mannered slurring that obscured many of the affecting words on ‘Gulag Orkestar’. These songs are written in a peculiar, almost archaic language referencing the folk tradition which gives them a compelling balance of clarity and allusion. What on earth is ‘The Penalty’ all about for example? ‘Our parents rue the day, they find us kneeling/Let them think what they may for they’ve good reason/Left for the lights always in season.’ These words have a deliberate, compelling flow but the precise meaning is somewhat elusive. ‘Cliquot’ is particularly fascinating – either delivered from a female perspective or a song about love between men (‘what kind of melody will lead my lover from his bed/what kind of melody will have him in my arms again?’).

Pallett makes his presence felt on the wonderful ‘Forks and Knives’, with its mix of elaborate orchestral swells and pizzicato strings. Throughout, his arrangements are thoughtful and inventive rather than smothering – there’s a wonderful moment on ‘In the Mausoleum’ when additional percussion enters, heralding a long instrumental passage dominated by Pallett’s hypnotic string melody. There’s a preoccupation with waltz time here that makes a refreshing change from the four-square stomp of most rock music (and which provides particularly fertile ground for Pallett’s arrangements).

Named in honour of a hot air balloon race, ‘The Flying Club Cup’ has some of the heady, celebratory rush that one might associate with such an event, but there’s also an underlying melancholy and mournfulness that the title conceals. Much like it’s predecessor, it’s a lugubrious and charming record, completely removed from any prevailing trends. It’s far more in tune with a recognisable folk tradition than the parodic, irksome ‘freak folk’ of Devendra Banhart and, whilst the songs seem lacking in contemporary resonances, they are seeped in a rich emotion that feels genuine and sincere.

Permanence

Control (Dir. Anton Corbijn, 2007)

I’ve never really liked Biopics very much. First of all, enjoyment of them tends to depend on your appreciation for the specific subject. Secondly, particularly in films about music and pop culture, they tend to glamorise depression, mental illness, drug taking and alcoholism in a way that must be singularly unhelpful to many people. Rock legends rarely make for particularly sympathetic figures and there have been some mind-numbingly tedious films based on their lives (Oliver Stone’s The Doors springs most immediately to mind). I therefore approached photographer Anton Corbijn’s debut feature film ‘Control’, based on the life of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, with some degree of trepidation.

I should also point out at the outset that it’s next to impossible for me to judge this film on accuracy, given that I wasn’t even born when Curtis committed suicide, and I therefore never got to see Joy Division perform (although I have seen their songs performed by New Order). There are some delightful period touches (particularly the emphasis on public telephones and circular dial phones, which seem wonderfully archaic now) and the depiction of late-70s Manchester seems plausible if perhaps a little stereotyped. The film is also careful to show the tension between the mundanities of Curtis’ domestic and working life, and his burgeoning aspirations as a singer. There is a wonderful shot in real time of his long walk from home to work, the camera eventually moving behind him to reveal the word HATE emblazoned on his back. It’s a striking combination of confidence and simmering resentment.

The film is certainly flawed. The early scenes depicting Curtis’ late-teens have a lightness of touch and are affectionately witty, but are also inevitably a little rushed. The charting of Curtis’ formative influences (Bowie, Glam Rock, Allen Ginsberg etc) is cursory at best. Much better are the representations of Bowie and Sex Pistols gigs, the former attended by Ian and Deborah, the latter attended by the band, where the camera focuses on the audience rather than attempting to restage the gigs themselves. This is a masterful and direct way of capturing the spirit and significance of these performances. The focus on Curtis also means that the character development of the other members of Joy Division is more than a little sketchy. The unfeasibly good looking Harry Treadaway gets only a couple of lines as drummer Stephen Morris, and the portrayal of Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner is perhaps a little one-dimensional, Sumner appearing naïve and excitable, Hooky outspoken and confrontational.

Former 10,000 Things vocalist Sam Riley may have got the part of Curtis because of his wonderfully accurate adoption of his onstage mannerisms, complete with bizarre on-the-spot marching dance. Ultimately, he’s perhaps a little too handsome to play Curtis – who I always saw as a deeply compelling but rather sexless performer – but he has the combination of furious intensity and solipsistic unease just right.

Indeed, in getting the actors to recreate Joy Division’s music rather than relying on existing recordings, the film captures the ragged, untutored rush of ideas that must have made this music so exciting at the time. Corbijn in fact first came to England in 1979 as a Joy Division fan, desperate to photograph the band and much of the impetus for this film has come from his own personal affinity with the group. The onstage scenes are brilliantly photographed, and there are a couple of spectacular set-pieces – the riot in Derby when Curtis was too disturbed to go on stage and his disturbing onstage attack of epilepsy. The judicious use of original recordings at key moments (‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ when Samantha Morton as Ian’s wife Debbie finally uncovers his affair with fanzine writer Annik, ‘Atmosphere’ at the film’s conclusion) also emphasises the intense emotional power of Curtis’ work that has now rendered it timeless.

The central performances are all excellent. Riley captures Curtis’ transition from romantic poet to guilt-laden adulterer with subtlety and impressive range, whilst Samatha Morton is dependably excellent as Ian’s suffering wife Deborah. Both have a convincing naivety that possibly explains their ill-advised marriage at the age of just eighteen. Their confrontations towards the end of the film are appropriately claustrophobic, and there’s a particularly powerful moment where Curtis interrupts sex to break down in tears. It’s a compelling and uncomfortable portrait of a turbulent, dysfunctional relationship where love has lost.

Equally convincingly portrayed is Curtis’ burgeoning relationship with Annik Honore, the Belgian fanzine writer. She offers him something ‘different’ (or ‘foreign’, as manager Rob Gretton, hilariously portrayed by Toby Keppel, puts it) – something enticing and irresistible, which brings him escape from the mundane, but only with concurrent terrible guilt when he returns home. When she asks him to ‘tell me about Macclesfield’, it proves the age old dictum that anything can sound sexy when said in a French accent. Whilst love interests are so often underwritten, Annik’s feelings are remarkably well drawn. She is neither rendered the villain of the piece nor an unwitting pawn in the story, but rather convincingly human with complex and conflicting emotions of her own (‘I’ve never felt like this before but I also feel I don’t know who you are’).

It’s worth pointing out that whilst this film depicts a life story that is undoubtedly sad and frequently bleak, ‘Control’ is a surprisingly tender and humorous film. There are some wonderful moments, such as when Gretton comforts Curtis after his onstage fit: ‘It could be worse mate’, he says, ‘you could be the lead singer in The Fall’. There’s a much more sympathetic portrait of the late Tony Wilson here than in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People, and, whether myth or reality, the scene where he signs Joy Division’s contract in his own blood is quite hilarious.

The film’s narrative arc is conventional but deftly handled, and its pacing is spot on. The script may occasionally tend towards the simplistic, but the moments of affecting humour more than compensate for this. The key to the success of ‘Control’ though comes with its almost effortless capturing of the energy and originality of the music. It also looks superb – fully justifying Corbijn’s decision to film in monochrome (apparently his memories of Joy Division are in black and white). Watching it, it’s easy to see just why Curtis has remained an iconic figure. In this sense, appreciation of Joy Division’s music is no pre-requisite to enjoying this engrossing and technically impressive film.

Fading Rainbow or Guiding Light?

I know the world and his wife are writing about Radiohead’s new ‘free’ album, but I’ve been encouraged to join in. Are Radiohead really undermining the music industry? A few days ago I would at least have argued that they were causing trouble. It’s less the fact that the album is being made available to download (this really is nothing new or particularly exciting) and more the timing of its release that is significant. The last ‘official’ word we heard on Radiohead’s latest was that it had now been put back for a 2008 release. Then came a series of bizarre red herrings before an official announcement that a new album would suddenly become available within ten days. This has caused a stir largely because it bypasses all the official channels, and it will be as damaging to the veritable institution of conventional music journalism as it will be to ‘the music industry’. There will be no advance speculation, previews, reviews or promotional interviews. Instead, with refreshing immediacy, the album will just appear, and everyday listeners will have the welcome opportunity of being the first to judge it.

This all ties in rather neatly with my analysis of Andrew Keen’s attack on Web 2.0 culture a few weeks ago. There is much talk now of the ‘death of the critic’. I still feel this is largely narrow-minded and hysterical – there will always be room for authoritative critical writing, it just may come from different places. Much of the initial reaction to ‘In Rainbows’ will now inevitably be generated from the Blogosphere. Naturally, I think this is rather exciting and healthy.

The other significant aspect of all this is the pricing system, which allows the consumer to decide how much the music is worth. Many have stated they will not pay in excess of £5 for it. Radiohead are no doubt able to do this because artists themselves receive only small proportion of revenue from physical CD sales (much of it is eaten by record label, distributors and vendors). By selling the record directly from a website, the band will receive 100% of the lucre. Even if everyone who downloads the album worldwide only spends £1 on it, that will probably still result in a healthy profit.

Particularly in light of further developments though, I don’t quite feel this is the death of the traditional music industry just yet. First and foremost, it’s worth noting that the band can only do all this by virtue of their massive level of success and acclaim, all achieved for them by the machinations (and budget) of EMI. Also, not only are the band releasing a boxed physical version that will ship in December for an extortionate £40 (‘Can you buy a good meal with that?’ questioned the group’s manager – of course you can!), but they have now announced that they will be signing a new major deal within a few days. Their manager has conceded that they still need the infrastructure and network of a major label to process and distribute physical product. How boring and conventional!

I suspect a lot of this may have to do with the realisation that Radiohead’s fanbase is broad, covering a wide range of ages and consumer habits. Teenage music fans (who would have been less than ten years old when ‘OK Computer’ was released!) may well embrace this means of distribution, but older listeners may well prefer the physical product. There are some consumers who are stuck firmly in the middle – I like maintaining libraries of CDs, vinyl, books and film, but I’m also rather excited by the new freedoms and flexibility offered by new technology.

There has long been a DIY, entrepreneurial spirit of independence in the music industry, but it has traditionally been a struggle to break even. This may well be changing, albeit more gradually than the loudest voices would suggest. A friend of mine genuinely thinks record labels as we understand them will soon be a thing of the past. I’m not sure what I think about this – but I certainly recognise a shift towards pockets of collectives building their own audiences (look at the Loop and F-IRE Collectives reigniting London’s tired jazz scene) and the increasing opportunities for artists to recoup their own investment, rather than forever being tied to major label debts.

Ridicule Is Nothing To Be Scared Of

The Decemberists @ London Royal Festival Hall

Until their most recent album ‘The Crane Wife’ was bizarrely afforded two UK releases, The Decemberists have not had much critical or commercial attention here. This makes it all the more surprising that the Royal Festival Hall (a rather sedate venue for their spirited live show) is pretty full, if not quite completely sold out. Maybe it’s the buzz that surrounds them on the internet (the ‘Pitchfork effect’ certainly worked for Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene), or maybe it’s just that the British public have much more sophisticated tastes in indie-rock than the pages of the NME would suggest. It’s a strange mix in the audience tonight – a good balance between male and female, but on the whole rather middle-aged. It’s not often these days that I feel young at a rock gig!

The Decemberists are one of those bands that have quietly and gradually worked their way into my affections. If their preoccupation with history, myth and folklore initially seemed rather twee, I now feel that they are expanding the language of rock songwriting through exploring the possibilities of storytelling in its purest form. In the process, they are neatly proving that songs don’t always have to derive from personal experience. I have considerable respect for this, particularly as I find detached, narrative-based songs much harder to write than those I draw from personal emotions and experiences.

To John Kell’s horror (http://www.johnkell.blogspot.com/), I recently described The Decemberists as ‘prog folk’, and some of their recent output directed me to assume, quite mistakenly as it transpires, that they might possibly take themselves a little too seriously. Musically and lyrically, they have cultivated a penchant for the epic, and there are plenty of elaborate arrangements on display here, even with the band stripped back to its five-member core. Whilst they emphasise their more expansive side tonight, opening with a highly theatrical version of ‘The Tain’ (apparently the first UK performance of this extended work) and airing the segued epics from ‘The Crane Wife’, they are also remarkably jovial and entertaining too. They tear into ‘The Perfect Crime’ and ‘O Valencia’ with a reckless abandon that is a joy to watch and the so far unreleased ‘Culling of the Fold’ is a gleeful song ‘advocating violence’.

They are an appropriately odd looking bunch. Frontman Colin Meloy resembles a peculiar hybrid of history teacher, winsome indie tunesmith and, disconcertingly, Edward from The League of Gentlemen. Fortunately, he’s a lot more personable than such a description would suggest, providing lengthy and frequently hilarious asides in his onstage banter. He claims that he needs to stop because we haven’t paid for ‘spoken word’, but he is so ridiculously verbose that the chatter is nearly as welcome as the music. The brilliant exposition on the story of the stolen bicycle that forms the basis of ‘The Apology Song’ is a particular highlight.

In the extended works, there’s plenty of instrument swapping, with accompanying exaggerated gestures and handshakes. There’s also a boundless energy, with Meloy quite literally bouncing across the breadth of the stage and at one point even singing from the audience. He’s not even in the slightest bit embarrassed that he ends up requiring assistance to get back to his rightful position again. Tonight, the group’s combination of fairytale, dry humour and audience participation takes the word ‘quirky’ to bold new levels.

If there’s a gripe, it’s that the emphasis on suites of music leaves little time for wider foraging into their back catalogue – a ‘Song For Myla Goldberg’, ‘The Sporting Life’ or ’16 Military Wives’ would have provided some more concise bursts of pop joy. That’s a bit of a petty fanboy quibble though, and the inspired encore of deconstructed sea shanty ‘The Mariner’s Revenge Song’ more than compensates, with plenty of demented onstage antics and implausibly named guitarist Chris Funk exhorting us to scream as if swallowed by a whale. It’s an outpouring of unashamed collective insanity that neatly encapsulates the energy and spirit of this excellent concert.

Look Mama, No Chords!

Polar Bear @ The Museum of Garden History
Outhouse @ The Oxford, Kentish Town

The Museum of Garden History in Lambeth Palace is an odd place to watch one of Britain’s most maverick and unusual jazz acts. With tables and chairs set out to allow for a rather sedate environment, and the addition of some healthy-looking food, it seems almost too civilised. Luckily, Seb Rochford’s increasingly brilliant group break out of the comfort zone with breathtaking musicality.

That only comes after an exceedingly lengthy, occasionally soporific support set from the appallingly named Sax, Lies and Audiotape (yes, we know sax sounds a bit like sex – ha bloody ha). A sax/electronics duo featuring the enervated and vigorous Tommaso Starace, the duo occasionally hit on a mysterious and engaging sound, particularly when odd samples (babies crying for example) floated in and out of the ether. Most of the time it sounded oddly directionless though, and a solo set from Starace might well have channelled more excitement. I had the sensation that Starace was frequently restrained by the meandering sounds in the background, which often failed to add texture or feeling. For such a long set, there simply wasn’t enough variety or changes in dynamic either.

Polar Bear have an intriguing set up – Rochford on drums, Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart as a dual sax frontline, the redoubtable Tom Herbert on bass and Leafcutter John providing electronic interjections. They make this work through a musical alchemy that is visible as well as audible – I’ve rarely seen a bassist and drummer watch each other quite as intently as Rochford and Herbert. It’s no surprise that when they hit their driving rhythmic features they sound so completely locked in. The contrast between Pete Wareham’s gritty blowing (although more expressive than his unsubtle blasting for Acoustic Ladyland) and Mark Lockheart’s more considered explorations also makes for engaging listening. The two also mesh together effortlessly to complete Polar Bear’s patchwork of sound, yet all the musicians leave plenty of space for thought and feeling.

Rochford, particularly, is a considerate and sensitive musician. He plays at a restrained volume throughout, even when at his most vigorous, and there’s a musical creativity on display that realises the full instrumental potential of the drum kit. Rochford orchestrates both his accompanying rhythms and his extemporised statements with real care and dexterity, and his playing benefits from being more creative and expressive than technically virtuosic. He seems more interested in the range of sound he can draw from his kit than simply proving his technical muscle.

As a manipulator of sound, Leafcutter John has now assumed a pivotal role in the group, echoing some of the soloists’ musical figures and also filling spaces with his own ideas. Some people feel this isn’t musical – but the transformation of sampled sounds is now a vital and vibrant part of the contemporary musical landscape. Like his kindred spirit Matthew Herbert, Leafcutter John is playful, confident and innovative.

There are moments when the group veer into abstraction – but the chemistry always remains, and the contrast between intense swathes of sound, and more delicate interventions is sustained throughout. It’s a remarkable set – the new material demonstrating Rochford’s development as a composer, the whole performance showing his group’s deep connections and creativity.

Along with Fraud probably the main project of London’s vibrant, dedicated Loop Collective, Outhouse are a powerhouse group of improvising musicians directed by saxophonist Robin Fincker. They began their short tour last night at The Oxford pub in Kentish Town, home of a regular night promoted by Loop that I’ve been attending for some time. I’m increasingly convinced that this group of musicians are slowly bringing about a sea change in the rather constricted London jazz scene. By playing in each other’s ensembles and being active in their own promotion, they are not only cutting out the non-role played by lazy promoters with little idea how to organise complementary line-ups, but are beginning to build their own audiences. The likes of Jazzwise magazine and Jazz on 3 have been on the case for some time – it’s surely now time for everyone else to follow. The likes of Fraud, Jim Hart’s Gemini, Alcyona, Naadia Sheriff and Dog Soup represent some of the most exciting British music of recent years.

Like Polar Bear, there is no harmonic accompaniment, with just Jonny Brierley’s acoustic bass and Dave Smith’s ferocious drumming completing a muscular rhythm section. Also like Polar Bear, they veer between deceptively simple themes more concerned with rhythmic displacement than conventional melody and long passages of free improvisation. The music grew out of freely improvised jam sessions the group began back in 2006. It could be argued that they sometimes try and pack too many ideas into one piece – Fincker has to explain that the opening ‘Pig’ was indeed ‘just one tune’ and ‘just called Pig’. It was gleefully manipulative of time and phrasing, but sometimes seemed to veer too maniacally between ideas and sounds.

Dave Smith’s drumming is particularly frantic, perhaps gamely attempting to fill all the spaces that might usually be occupied by chordal accompaniment as well as providing the rhythmic core. Occasionally he is simply too loud, and he then risks obscuring the fluency of Brierley’s bass playing. He’s intensely creative though, and has an ease of movement around the kit that belies his unconventional, rigid posture. At one point, he uses a detached drum skin to play the rest of the kit – it’s a bizarre, almost surreal moment in a gig packed with surprises. Smith is also a master of asymmetrical time – his grooves in 7 or 11 sound unfathomably comfortable and fluent. He has developed a drumming language that is invigorating and confident.

Robin Fincker and Mark Hanslip connect brilliantly, particularly in the free sections, and there’s an intensity and energy in their playing that never sags. Occasionally, the deployment of some lyricism or grace might provide added armoury, but the rhythmic contrasts are so radical and unpredictable that there’s more than enough to sink the teeth into here. Most importantly, Outhouse’s music has an obvious joy that elevates it well above the realm of the purely academic. They have a bright future.

Messages Without Meaning

The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who mercifully calls himself 'Joe', is currently the subject of a short retrospective at what we used to be able to call the National Film Theatre in London. Despite only having made five features so far, he fully deserves this attention, as one of the most audacious and original filmmakers currently at work, and for having significantly raised the profile of Thai cinema (his film ‘Tropical Malady’ was the first Thai film to win a critics’ prize at Cannes).

Perhaps his easiest film to digest is his most lengthy, the languid ‘Blissfully Yours’ which essentially unfolds in real time. It is ostensibly a tale of how a leisurely afternoon of al fresco sex is interrupted, but its subtle evocations of tensions and emotions, gradually revealed without dramatic confrontation or violence, is rather majestic. The lush attention to detail in the photographing of landscape and location is a genuine pleasure too. Whilst the deliberately slow pacing and lack of dialogue will seem unfamiliar to western audiences attuned more to the exaggerated action and the snappy scripting of American cinema, ‘Blissfully Yours’ seems remarkably conventional when placed next to his other works.

‘Tropical Malady’ is extraordinary, baffling, possibly visionary and certainly impressive. Its first half shares some of the subtleties and romanticism of ‘Blissfully Yours’, focussing on the blossoming romance between an unemployed illiterate city boy and a soldier. It strikes me as interesting that this film has been welcomed under the banner of ‘gay interest’ cinema, as this love is presented in an entirely matter-of-fact and non judgmental way. There is no reference whatsoever to identity politics, the relationship seems playful and tender without anguish or deliberation, and family members seem largely accepting and unquestioning. The most explicitly sexual moment comes when the two young men kiss and lick each other’s hands, an extraordinary moment of natural and unforced eroticism. Joe also demonstrates his brutally dry sense of humour with occasional deployments of camp – the hilarious duet between Sakda (the city boy) and a cabaret singer is a particularly brilliant moment, as is the diversion to an aerobics workout.

Yet after that moment of tantalising erotic play, Sakda mysteriously walks off into the darkness, the screen goes pitch black for ten seconds or more, and the film suddenly and quite unexpectedly changes direction. There’s a brief interlude exploring animal sprit myths, before Sakda and Keng reappear, Keng as a soldier at first chasing, and then being chased by, Sakda’s tiger spirit. There is little or no dialogue in this section and minimal music, yet the tension and claustrophobia is palpable. Joe achieves this through slow but deliberate camera movements, close-up shots expressing fear and bewilderment, and with a naturalist’s attention to the detail of the jungle.

Eventually, Keng the soldier learns more about his situation and his fate, communicating with a monkey to understand that he is both ‘prey and companion’ of the tiger. Ultimately, he must decide whether to free Sakda’s spirit by killing him, or allow himself to be devoured by him, and therefore enter his world. The final confrontation between Keng and the tiger is both mind-boggling and gripping.

What is all this about? The opening of the film may give hints as to its explanation, with an intertitle displaying a quotation emphasising the bestial nature of man that must be subsumed. So, what is Joe saying is bestial in this film? Is it the tender homosexual love depicted in the film’s first half? This seems unlikely, given that the film ends emphasising, in a unique way, the union between Keng and Sakda, and it seems unlikely that Joe would have portrayed the relationship so affectionately were this his underlying intention. I personally felt the film was emphasising that human relationships come with a peculiar combination of innocence and animalistic desires, the latter sometimes needing to be contained, but Joe himself offers no such clear explanation. It may also hint at the shifting patterns of domination and subservience within relationships too, and the extreme measures required to achieve genuine equality. Whatever it is actually about, ‘Tropical Malady’ is a compelling and fascinating film and quite possibly a masterpiece.

It also makes a lot more sense when placed next to ‘Mysterious Object at Noon’, Joe’s debut feature, pretty much unscreened in this country before now. This is shot entirely in black and white, and shares some of the blurring of fiction and documentary that characterised Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Close Up’. It is a similarly challenging and effective film – even when it appears matter of fact, beneath the surface, there is a world of mystery, fascination and intrigue. The film shows Joe and crew travelling around Thai villages, attempting to make some kind of documentary about Thai life and culture. The result is the unfolding of a magical realist fairytale, narrated and elaborated by the people the crew meet on their journey, sometimes even acted out by them. It gives some context and background for the deployment of folk tale and mythology in ‘Tropical Malady’.

This offers no explanation whatsoever for ‘Syndromes and a Century’, however. This is Joe’s most recent film, and his contribution to the Mozart-inspired ‘New Crowned Hope’ project to which Tsai Ming-Liang also contributed the similarly outstanding ‘I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone’ (showing at the NFT in November). I must admit that Tsai’s film affected me far more on an emotional level – ‘Syndromes…’ does seem rather formalised and cold by comparison. Perhaps this is where its relationship to musical composition lies – in its emphasis on repetition, extended themes, motifs and developments. It is certainly puzzling and memorable.

I don’t share the sentiments of The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw that it is a ‘transcendentally happy’ experience though, nor do I agree with translator and critic Tony Rayns that it is an easy watch. There are moments when it is deceptively light, and this may be when the film is at its most accessible and charming but, taken as a whole, it maintains a dangerous balancing act between being hypnotic and being soporific, and any meaning or explanation is, in this case, completely elusive. There are also images that are exceptionally disquieting and unsettling – as claustrophobic and unpleasant as anything in a more conventional horror movie.

It is set consistently in a hospital – although the initial calm rural setting eventually gives way to a murkier, far more oppressive urban location in the film’s second half. Whilst it shares its bifurcated structure with ‘Tropical Malady’, it does not share that film’s sudden lurch to a radically different scenario – instead it repeats earlier scenes in different contexts, sometimes with words and themes echoed by different characters. Occasionally, there are even strong visual echoes such as the astonishing image of a large extractor pipe sucking in vapour in the second hospital’s terrifying basement, which reflects back on an earlier image of an eclipse. It’s almost as if nature is being channelled into man’s activities. The effect is both provocative and perplexing.

The film mostly seems to be dealing with unrequited affections, although this is not necessarily it key theme – the central female character, Dr. Toey, is doggedly followed by a colleague clearly besotted with her, whilst she attempts to divert him with stories about her own unfulfilled romantic feelings. There is a sketchier subplot about the hospital Dentist, also a semi-professional singer, and his growing infatuation with his Buddhist monk patient. The one relationship that appears to be based on reciprocated feelings is also fraught with tension, with the two parties clearly wanting very different paths in life. The relationship is possibly even meaningless when set against the other unconsummated romantic crusades, which Joe invests with more significance.

The first half of the film, with its hospital corridors seemingly unusually tranquil, has a feather-light touch and is really rather beautiful. It is essentially a series of wry, humorous vignettes but it sustains a casually elegant flow.

Both halves begin with Dr. Toey interviewing a new doctor, Dr. Nohng, for a job. In the first half he seems rather lost and detached, but in the second, he adopts a far more significant role, exploring the hospital’s unnerving basement, confronting a mentally disturbed patient with carbon monoxide poisoning, and invited to drink from a bottle with some ageing female doctors. It seems that all the lightness of the first half has vanished – in this dense, urban location with its high rise buildings, there is oppression, frustration and confusion in abundance.

Weerasethakul has described ‘Syndromes…’ as a ‘recreation of the lives of his parents’, both of whom were themselves Doctors, and his own memories of the hospital environment as a child. To this, he has added little by way of explanation. Is this film simply a rather languid and dreamy exploration of alternative realities or is it playing with Buddhist notions of reincarnation?

Joe has also said that his films are ‘about nothing’. Yet, the very fact that they are so haunting and immersing suggests otherwise. I found ‘Syndromes…’ his strangest work so far, at once both heart-warming and fearful. ‘Tropical Malady’ is completely extraordinary, vivid, powerful and imaginative. I would suggest these are films about everything and nothing.

Above The Clouds

Dirty Projectors - Rise Above

Dave Longstreth is completely insane. Fortunately, both for him and for us, he’s also a maverick genius. His constantly shifting ensemble, Dirty Projectors, are the most unhinged and viscerally exciting live act I’ve seen this year, and ‘Rise Above’ is an utterly magnificent record. It’s supposedly a reinterpretation of Black Flag’s ‘Damaged’, constructed entirely from memory as Longstreth was left with the inlay but not the cassette of his original copy of the album. My knowledge of Black Flag is fairly limited, so this won’t be the most contextualised review I’ve ever written but I’m pretty sure the result sounds absolutely nothing like Black Flag. It is, however, the most strikingly original concoction to have emerged from the American rock underground in some time. It is clearly more about the inspiration and sensations Longstreth derived from Black Flag in his youth, than about the specific sound and arrangements of those songs.

Longstreth clearly has no reservations about adopting a ‘pick and mix’ approach to music, grabbing liberally from an open-minded range of genres. Oddly, the result is the most accessible Dirty Projectors record to date but that certainly doesn’t make it conventional or predictable. Longstreth veers off on any unexpected tangent that takes his interest – the rhythms are fragmented and changeable, the arrangements multi-faceted and compelling, particularly on this occasion in the use of vocal harmonies. His own rather anguished vocals might be an acquired taste, but they are softened by his sweet-sounding female counterparts.

The songs often begin in deceptively safe territory – perhaps with the strum of an acoustic guitar or with a clearly stated melody. There’s simply no guessing where they will end up though, or what route they will take to get there. Who could predict the sudden lurch into reggae that takes place mid-way through ‘Police Story’ or the switch between propulsive afrobeat grooves and some sort of contemporary wind and string arrangements that characterise ‘No More’ and ‘Depression’.

Even the most straightforward moments have real oddities when the veneer is scratched away. The title track begins with a Neil Young-esque trudge and is probably the closest Longstreth will get to being immediately infectious. Yet the melody, pleasing on the ear as it is, is considerably more exotic than anything Young might have penned, and perhaps derives more from roots reggae – Culture or Burning Spear may well have been on the Longstreth playlist at some point.

Longstreth’s music is consistently playful and stimulating, but there’s also the sense that he is striving for something powerful, contemporary and significant. My knowledge of Black Flag is not great enough to confirm whether the lyrics here are taken from the source material, but plenty of these songs apply neatly to current geo-political tensions, from the assertion that ‘we’re fighting a war we can’t win, they hate us, we hate them’ to the title track’s frustration with abuse and manipulation. It’s not exactly the most nuanced poetry you’ll ever hear, but it does have a brutal impact to match Longstreth’s dazzling sonorities.

‘Rise Above’ is an album as brilliantly unfathomable and disorientating as life itself. Yet it has its own peculiar internal logic – much of its invention sounds precise and mathematical, yet there’s a looseness and vigour in the playing that defies classification. It transcends just about everything.

Magic In The Night?

Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Getting straight down to business, I'd say it's pretty unlikely that this one will give Springsteen another In League With Paton album of the year gong, although I don't suppose the great man will care too much about that. Ultimately, I much prefer the outstanding Seeger Sessions band Live in Dublin set from earlier in the year. It's churlish to complain though when Springsteen is clearly a rejuvenated force. He'd virtually retired in 2001 when he felt compelled to respond to the tragic events of 9/11. Since then, he's barely paused for breath, touring 'The Rising' with the same hardworking spirit that informed the juggernaut 'Born In The USA' tour, completing the piecemeal 'Devils and Dust' solo set, forming The Seeger Sessions band for a foray into the American folk tradition and taking it to its logical conclusion on the ensuing tour, transforming his own back catalogue in the process. It's been the most productive phase of his career so far, with Springsteen crediting his audience with the intelligence to follow him on some of his less predictable journeys.

'Magic' is not one of those journeys though. It's a retreat to what is now the relative safety of the E Street Band, and a conscious effort to recapture the modernised rock sound of 'The Rising', whilst foresaking its weighty concerns in favour of a more concise, unburdened vision. At its best, this is no bad thing at all, and the album is blessed with a clutch of major songs. 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'I'll Work For Your Love' return to the Spector preoccupations that informed 'Born To Run' whilst 'Long Walk Home' and 'Gypsy Biker' are massive powerhouse anthems - the kind of song that would sound embarrassing in any other hands, but which Springsteen's grit and integrity manage to make genuine.

There's much less trickery and gimmickery here than on 'The Rising', in spite of Springsteen's decision to again employ Brendan O'Brien as producer. Whilst the sound is drier and more organic, there is still the sense that O'Brien is doing his level best to obscure the E Street Band as a unit, increasing the emphasis on thudding drums and rhythmically uninteresting strummed guitars at the expense of Roy Bittan's piano or Danny Federici's organ. 'Livin' In The Future' sounds entertaining and has a deliciously slinky chorus, but the production places it dangerously close to the MOR funk of Maroon 5. 'You'll Be Comin' Down' is somewhat underwhelming too, more than a little clunky and plodding. There's also not nearly enough of Nils Lofgren's expressive slide guitar, whilst Clarence Clemons is restricted to short but intense interjections on the saxophone. Strangely, 'Magic' actually sounds much closer to 'Lucky Town' (the more unfairly maligned of Springsteen's non-E Street albums of the early 90s) than any of the E Street albums. Some of these songs, particularly 'Long Walk Home', 'Gypsy Biker', 'Last To Die' and 'Radio Nowhere' are going to sound spectacular live, when the band is given more space to, ahem, work its magic.

The great variety and experimentation that characterised Springsteen's vocal performances on the Seeger Sessions album has also largely been abandoned in favour of a more stark contrast between belting with conviction and the more sombre tones of the title track or the uncredited 'Terry's Song' (a heartfelt tribute to his friend and colleague Terry McGovern who died recently). Springsteen sounds particularly stark and resigned on the title track, which is spare and beautiful.

It certainly isn't his greatest album lyrically either, occasionally sounding a little short on creative ideas. 'Radio Nowhere' is a great pop song, but it's hardly a new sentiment to lament modern American radio, and M Ward celebrated the golden era of radio with more insight on 'Transistor Radio'. It's brilliantly infectious though, and likely to provide Springsteen with his first real hit single in some time. Elsewhere, he occasionally seems stuck with benign platitudes or rather obvious statements, although I appreciate the melancholy sway of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' or the resigned longing of 'Long Walk Home'. Many criticised the apocalyptic and Biblical imagery of 'The Rising' as cliched and a means of avoiding challenging the more Patriotic element of his audience, but I'd take that dignified attempt at a poetic response over much of 'Magic'. 'Last To Die' may be the most adventurous moment lyrically here, but there's nothing close to his most recent masterpiece 'Long Time Comin' from 'Devils and Dust', with its rich, Cormac McCarthy-inspired manipulation of language.

The pre-release buzz for 'Magic' characterised it as a back-to-basics rock album and for once the press material is not entirely misleading. It's the most lightweight record Springsteen has made in some time, and far less concerned with contemporary context than his recent work. It doesn't quite have the playful zest of 'The River' though. For me, this album is at its best when it gets as soulful as it is hard-hitting. The slightly melancholy leanings of 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' and 'Your Own Worst Enemy' invest them with greater emotional force.

The closing 'Devil's Arcade' is the only hint that Sprinsteen might ever return to the expansive, epic vision that informed 'Born To Run' and its flipside 'Darkness On The Edge of Town', but its a mesh of swirling atmospherics and meandering guitars rather than anything more focused or concerted. 'Magic' can be a little brutal and unsubtle at times, and there's certainly room for more light and shade. It is, however, easily digestible and occasionally fiery and thrilling.

Reports of the Death of Culture Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

NB: Personal View – not written in a work capacity.

Until next Monday morning, you can hear a rather excellent edition of the BBC World Service arts programme Culture Shock here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/culture_shock.shtml

I draw attention to this programme because of the presence of ‘Web guru’ Andrew Keen, who argues that various aspects of Web 2.0 (the Blogosphere, social networking websites, Wikipedia etc) are ‘killing our culture’ (whose culture specifically?). Obviously, as a keen blogger (no pun intended!), I have a clear interest to declare, but this doesn’t blind me to some of Keen’s more interesting statements.

He’s absolutely right to argue for personal responsibility online in the same way that we (should) expect it offline, and his argument that ‘we have to shape technology as much as it shapes us’ is powerful and important. Most of us are indeed aware that the internet is a very diverse space, awash with as much spin, opinion and disinformation as it is with useful resources. It’s also particularly vulnerable to extreme expressions, frequently without the backing of academic research. Wikipedia is an insightful example, as anyone who has seen some of the maliciously edited entries will no doubt testify.

He also had an interesting, if flawed, point to make about ‘anonymity’. His statement that ‘anonymity’ (neglecting the fact that complete anonymity on the web is next to impossible for anyone who isn’t a mastermind hi-tech criminal) ‘is a kind of theft’ is particularly audacious. By writing without declaring their true identities, bloggers and volunteer Wikipedia editors are taking without giving anything back, assuming kudos and expertise that they have not necessarily earned or proved. Well, perhaps, but an individual need not necessarily provide their name and address to demonstrate their credentials, even if only in the interests of personal security. Keen argues from this that ‘permissiveness about intellectual property is a vital social question.’ He doesn’t, however, discuss any practical questions about how we might restrict citizens’ contributions to the internet. He also doesn’t attempt to argue why the democratic ideal of freedom of speech should not also apply in the online realm.

It is also a massive logical leap between these positions and the alarmist notion that a ‘cult of the amateur’ is undermining expertise. I’m sorry to disappoint Keen, but I don’t believe that all professional journalists are corrupt rogues being bribed by PR companies or political interest groups. I do believe, however, that they have jobs to do, with specific audiences, business interests or shareholders in mind. This is not to say that any of this is inherently evil, just that it’s worth recognising the factors that may shape the work of professional journalists and experts. The word ‘amateur’ needn’t be negative. In my case, I hope it simply means that I’m not writing with a specific audience in mind; that I don’t have to write about a particular record simply because someone has been ‘kind’ enough to send me a free copy and that I’m relatively unconcerned about backing something that might turn out to flop. I can write about a wider range of music and film, focussing on aspects of art and culture for which I have genuine enthusiasm, thus aiming for a more positive approach.

Of course, I’m free to get things wrong without discipline or censure (and regular readers will hopefully recognise that I usually correct myself when I do) – but I’m also free to correct inaccuracies and errors in the professional media when I spot them. For a recent example, the NME (not a paper particularly respected for its journalists’ knowledge of jazz) reported the sad death of Joe Zawinul, but its news item was riddled with errors, not only claiming that Miroslav Vitous was a guitarist (in fact, he’s one of the greatest acoustic bassists in the world), but also claiming that he and Jaco Pastorius were members of Weather Report simultaneously – an interesting prospect that never actually happened (Vitous left in 1974, replaced by Alphonso Johnson, Pastorius didn’t join until 1976)! Why Keen thinks a professional news reporter for the NME is intrinsically more likely to have ‘expertise’ than me (an individual passionate about a massive range of music), I find a little baffling. Keen talks about individual amateur writers needing to be held to account, but one of our roles can be holding those professionals who fail to check their facts to an appropriate level of accountability themselves!

It’s also worth noting that the lines between ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ may not be as clearly demarcated as Keen implies. A number of professional journalists also maintain blogs, where they have more space to exposit their thoughts (no word limits!) and more freedom to express individual views that veer away from a particular editorial line. For anyone interested in music, I would heartily recommend John Mulvey’s Wild Mercury Sound blog at the Uncut magazine website (which very successfully helps promote the magazine whilst challenging some of its limitations), Simon Reynolds’ blissblog or Marcello Carlin’s fascinating and inspired Church of Me as great examples of this.

Keen’s most contentious point is that blogs ‘collectively confuse popular opinion’. This is a wholly misguided statement in my view. Firstly, blogs are by their nature not a collective enterprise but rather the expression of individual views, some more carefully justified than others. In his response to Keen, trend tracker Tim Jackson argued that the phenomenon of blogging allowed individual voices to share some of the power traditionally held by employers, pressure groups, institutions and corporations. Can Keen really suggest that blogs are more influential in influencing public opinion than the tabloid press or broadcast media? This would assume that blogs are far more widely read than they actually are!

Rather flippantly, Keen states that ‘if culture is free then you get what you pay for and it’s usually crap.’ Keen has much of value to say, and his argument that the future of the web should depend more on expertise than hearsay is convincing. Yet his assumption that permissiveness always breeds decline and degradation is dangerous, and fails to credit individual internet users with enough intelligence to select which blogs to read and to corroborate whatever information they may find with other sources. It’s rather frustrating that, in the interview at least, Keen fails to differentiate between those bloggers with clear passion and enthusiasm for their subject, and those self-interested writers simply looking to promote themselves. I don’t feel that by writing and publishing this website, I’m somehow participating in a devaluation of culture, rigour and expertise. Instead I hope I’m helping to challenge commonly held assumptions about where expertise might lie, and perhaps even aid cultural discourse. It’s a fascinating debate, and it seems entirely appropriate that the BBC should give voice to someone emphasising rigour, fact-checking and expertise, important elements in the wider virtue of impartiality. However, the idea that ‘professional’ always equates with qualified and ‘amateur’ always means ignorant is itself misleading.

Tending To The Flock

Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Perhaps I’ve waxed lyrical about Iron and Wine more than enough on these pages already but I can’t help feeling that ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ deserves special attention as the first Iron and Wine album to explore the full possibilities of an ensemble sound. Most likely inspired by the outstanding collaboration with Calexico from a couple of years ago (indeed, Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus from that wonderful group both appear here), Sam Beam has now delivered rich and inventive arrangements to match his deeply compelling songs.

Lyrically, Beam continues to look like a true original and a master of language. His images are at once elusive and pure (‘love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees’) and he has a peculiar knack for unusual juxtapositions (‘Cain got a milk eyed mule from the auction, Abel got a telephone’ or ‘springtime and the promise of an open fist’). Somehow, these words always seem to flow softly and elegantly (no doubt Beam’s beautifully understated delivery helps in this regard) and always evoke feelings rather than obscuring them.

Those who, like me, deeply admire Beam’s talent for composing ballads in the true sense of the term – long, storytelling songs with languid melodies – may be disappointed that his masterful song ‘The Trapeze Swinger’ is rarely used as a template here. There is the gorgeous ‘Resurrection Fern’, which closely resembles that song, albeit in far more concise form. Its chorus is almost unspeakably beautiful (‘we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire/both our tender bellies wrapped around in bailing wire/all the more an underwater pearl than the oak tree and its resurrection fern’), bolstered by Paul Niehaus’ subtle but stirring pedal steel. The closing ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’ also has something of a soulful lilt to it, and is characteristically tender and affecting.

For most of ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, though, Beam explores the more rhythmically driven, bluesy aspects of his work, to increasingly powerful effect. I think I credited Beam with pioneering something approaching an ‘American folk minimalism. This felt like a neat categorisation at the time but now seems hopelessly inadequate. ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ is Beam’s most brazenly percussive work to date, both in terms of its deployment of a range of percussion instruments (but never a conventional drum kit) and in the style of guitar playing Beam deploys throughout. As a result, ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’ achieves much in retracing some of the lost connections between Appalachian blues and African desert music. ‘House By The Sea’ sounds closer to Ali Farka Toure than Bob Dylan (albeit with a hint of Roger McGuinn in the guitar solos), and there are echoes of the repetitive, hypnotic grooves of the Touareg masters Tinariwen, particularly on ‘Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)’ or first single ‘Boy With A Coin’.

Somehow I hadn’t quite latched on to just how many of these songs Beam performed at his special show at the Spitz a couple of months ago. As a result many of the melodies and lyrical ideas already seem recognisable, but the overall sound of the record is somewhat unexpected and fascinating. This makes for an enchanting combination of distance and familiarity. There are all manner of sounds that seem alien to the trademark Iron and Wine sound – cello, soulful Wurlitzer, scratchy guitars, the delightful honky tonk piano on ‘The Devil Never Sleeps’, perhaps what might even be the odd intervention of electronics. The deep connection with the blues is still at the heart of this music, but the feel is now less rustic and more elastic.

Beam is an extraordinary songwriter capable of vivid, dreamlike songs that conjure their own weird combination of romanticism and danger. He would still be a significant artist even were he content to continue simply as an acoustic troubadour. That he has found new contexts for his elegiac words and melodies makes hiw work all the more expressive and powerful.

Ghosts in the Machine

PJ Harvey's 'White Chalk'

PJ Harvey clearly has little care for continuity. With each new album, she has reinvented herself. She indulged her fiery rage and righteous hatred on ‘Rid Of Me’, explored erotic mysteries on ‘To Bring You My Love’ and ‘Is This Desire?’, ventured into relatively conventional rock terrain for the Mercury winning ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea’ and vented uncomplicated aggression on ‘Uh Huh Her’. Her latest venture, ‘White Chalk’, may well represent her most audacious transformation yet. It’s certainly the least commercial record she’s made in some time, in a career where commercial concerns rarely, if ever, seem to have been a significant factor.

At just 36 minutes long, one might be forgiven for inserting it into a CD player and expecting a set of snappy pop songs. Polly Harvey rarely takes such a comfortable route though of course. ‘White Chalk’ is in fact as confrontational and austere a record as I’ve heard this year. The majority of these songs were composed at the piano, and feature Polly pushing, occasionally straining, into the upper reaches of her vocal register. Formally trained pianists may wish to turn away now, for Polly is undoubtedly something of a novice at the old ivories, and much of the touch here is rather plinky-plonk.

There is, however, something eerily appropriate about this approach, particularly in the way it has directed Harvey towards a kind of chamber-noir sound. For much of ‘White Chalk’, Polly seems to be revelling in nostalgia for old lands, old times and a child’s loss of innocence. This being a PJ Harvey album though, it’s not the heart-warming, or even the melancholy form of nostalgic reverie. There’s a simmering malice and macabre chill throughout ‘White Chalk’ that creates unresolved tensions of the most cloying and uncomfortable kind. The skeletal piano and Yoko Ono-esque vocals serve to heighten and emphasise this discomfort.

The wonderful ‘Silence’, perhaps the album’s best track, begins ‘All those places where I recall/The memories that gripped me and pinned me down’. It sets the scene for the intense drama that plays out in the rest of the song, and also neatly summarises the album’s distinctive themes. Memory here has an inevitable, unavoidable force but is also stifling and disconcerting.

Both the title track and ‘Grow Grow Grow’ seem to revisit childhood. The latter is clearly an exploration of burgeoning child sexuality (‘Teach me Mummy how to grow, how to catch someone’s fancy beneath the twisted oak grove’), delivered almost as a fairytale. There are echoes of Angela Carter’s ‘The Company of Wolves’ here, with its Freudian take on the Little Red Riding Hood story. ‘White Chalk’ itself is one of the more immediately appealing songs in this set, and one of the few to favour the rustle of an acoustic guitar over the more weighty backing of the piano. Harvey sings of ‘white chalk, sticking to my shoes, playing as a child with you’ and, rather more chillingly, claims that ‘these chalk hills will rot my bones’. There’s a majestic flow to the song that builds as it progresses.

Elsewhere, there’s an unrestrained longing that frequently boils over into desperation, from the malevolent cry at the heart of ‘The Devil’ (‘Come! Come! Come here at once!’) to the burning desire of ‘The Piano’. Much of this is reinforced by the stately yet quietly terrifying arrangements of these songs, from vivid vocal harmonies to soft, rustling percussion. Nick Cave’s ‘The Boatman’s Call’ has been cited as an obvious reference point, but where that album largely saw Cave abandon his trademark menace for more spiritual and romantic concerns, ‘White Chalk’ is as unsettling and troubling a record as Harvey has yet produced. Similarly, comparisons with Tori Amos and Kate Bush are largely unhelpful. There is mercifully nothing of Amos’ forced kookiness here, and if ‘White Chalk’ echoes some of Bush’s recent preoccupations with nature, that is only in the propensity of the natural world to evoke feeling and prompt memory. ‘White Chalk’ occupies its own peculiar space – a world that is creepy and bleak but thoroughly bewitching. On the surface, it’s completely uninviting, but ultimately it’s irresistibly tempting.

Spaced Oddity

Elmore Judd - Insect Funk

Elmore Judd are an unusual group comprising some of North London’s finest musicians, including the superb drummer Tom Skinner and keyboardist-songwriter Jesse Hackett, with whom I used to attend Ian Carr’s jazz workshops at the WAC Performing Arts and Media College. Hackett has been both shrewd and fortuitous in making useful friends through his participation in Damon Albarn’s Mali Music project. The result was a deal with the excellent Honest Jon’s label (so far mainly responsible for the rediscovering of soul legends such as Candi Staton, Bettye Swann and Willie Hightower), in which Albarn has a stake.

The group have already been acclaimed as ‘genuine innovators’ by Blues and Soul magazine, although they undoubtedly wear their influences rather proudly. What is most interesting about Hackett’s approach is the way that he has conducted something of a smash-and-grab raid on recent musical history. The opening ‘Pirate Song’ sounds like a Tom Waits song, and could have fitted comfortably on Hal Wilner and Gore Verbinski’s ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ pirate compilation from last year. ‘Dead Men Walk In A Straight 9’, with its rather bizarre oom-pah backing, mines similar ground. Skinner’s drums, emphasising beats against the main pulse, pull it in other directions, creating a perplexing, perhaps drunken sense of creeping unease.

Elsewhere, the sound is deliberately skeletal, somewhere close to Hot Chip (particularly on the synth-heavy erotic squelch of ‘Funky Nerd’) but with the dry, ironic humour extracted. ‘Disco in 4 Time’ and ‘We Float In Time’ have a similarly relentless four-to-the-floor backbeat to that deployed by LCD Soundsystem and many of the other DFA acts. By way of contrast, though, the title track is radical and off-kilter, with peculiar interlocking cartoonish vocals. ‘Ultra Busy’ has a disorientating, sub-aquatic feel that may well have been influenced by ‘Bitches Brew’ era Miles Davis. They are both perverse delights.

Although Hackett, his brother Louis and drummer Skinner are all virtuosic talents, there’s more creativity than showmanship on display on ‘Insect Funk’ and it’s all the more successful because of this commendable restraint. The group dynamic involves exploring the full possibility of sound and its manipulation and there is an extraordinary attention to detail on display here. Few bands vary their texture so greatly simply through the drum sound for example – there are lightly brushed drums, electronically manipulated, flat-sounding drums, and intricate, expressive percussion tracks. The guitar and keyboard lines are carefully mapped too, always simple and adding something to the atmosphere or the groove. Hackett is not so techinically gifted as a singer, but he achieves a mysterious quality through his breathy falsetto and enigmatic murmurings. ‘Insect Funk’ is slippery but insidious and undoubtedly impressive. It would be great to see this band break out of the restrictive London bubble.

Some Of The Dates Have Been Changed...

Nevermind US sub-prime mortgages - it was next Monday's album releases that were the most likely cause of financial disaster for me. Luckily, things are looking a little more staggered now. Here's an updated schedule for the next few weeks:

Sep 24th

Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Bettye Lavette - Scene Of The Crime
Manu Katche - Playground

Oct 1st

Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade (moved from Sep 24th)
Scott Walker - And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? (moved from Sep 24th)

Oct 8th

Supersilent - 8 (moved from Sep 24th)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (moved from Oct 1st)
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (already reviewed here!)

Languages of Love

Sylvie Lewis - Translations

Can I really be in love with a woman I’ve not even seen in person let alone met? Not really of course, but there’s certainly something rather enchanting about Sylvie Lewis. Born in Britain but now living in Rome, Lewis has led a remarkably itinerant lifestyle, including four years at the prestigious Berklee School of Music. This college is famous for having produced a number of quality jazz musicians, but its considerably rarer to find singer-songwriters among its alumni (and they tend towards the intellectual end of the spectrum – Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen for example).

Lewis’ lovely second album ‘Translations’ is loosely themed around complexities of language and communication and it has a delicate, old-time feel evidencing her formal training. Whilst there are elements of folk and classic pop, there are also strong hints of the jazz tradition, cabaret and show-tunes thrown into a thoroughly beguiling mix. In its deft handling of a variety of old-fashioned styles, it’s not a million miles from the recent explorations of Erin McKeown or Jolie Holland but there’s such a lightness of touch here that Lewis stands in a class of her own. Her consummate delivery is relaxed, effortless and commendably understated. There’s no attempt whatsoever to admonish the listener with crass dexterity or virtuosity, but rather a completely natural command of both phrasing and melody.

The delicate, playful quality of these songs will no doubt mean that appreciation depends on the individual listener’s tolerance for whimsy. Personally, I find these songs whimsical in the most delightful way – charming, graceful, insightful and spellbinding. It’s not just a collection of great songs, but also packed full of captivating moments too, such as the coda to ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’, where the music suddenly veers away from jaunty barroom jazz to pure Burt Bacharach-meets-Karen Carpenter schmaltz. Alternatively, there’s also ‘Starsong’, which begins with a lushly romantic voice and guitar introduction before moving into a light-hearted ragtime bounce. There are also lovely touches in the instrumentation too, with the focus shifting between softly strummed acoustic guitar to subtle piano. Richard Swift provides entrancing swathes of mellotron on a handful of tracks, and there are some very canny arrangements for strings, brass and woodwind.

‘Translations’ is an apt title for this record in so many ways, not only dealing as it does with communication and the language of love, but also capturing shared experience between a variety of different situations. This is an open-minded collection of songs where a variety of narratives intertwine, with a handful of the songs seemingly written in character from a male perspective. Lewis’ lyrics are mostly direct and unpretentious, sometimes exploring a casual manipulation of language. The opening lines to ‘Say in Touch’ are particularly charming: ‘He’s got a lover in New York/Likes to mention her in casual talk/Whenever they meet, they don’t speak much/When they meet they say in touch.’ Throughout, there’s a strong sense of wisdom gained through experience, although it’s consistently delivered in an entertaining, playful spirit.

These songs conjure a plausible world where conventional impressions of beauty can be both inspiring and oppressive, and Lewis subtly manages to challenge these conventions in the process on songs such as ‘Cheap Ain’t Free’ and ‘Death By Beauty’. On ‘Happy Like That’ she perceptively observes the flirtations of married men in late night bars (‘You want to be wanted, just a taste/But you push it to the edge because you know that you’re safe’) and, by way of contrast, there’s also the wonderfully breezy settle-for-singledom charm of ‘If It Don’t Come Easy’, with its insistent handclaps and chiming guitars. ‘Old Queens, Monet and Me’ doesn’t just dare to rhyme ‘Dubonnet’ with ‘Monet’ but also comes with a healthy dose of irony (‘as for music, all the good songs are covers anyway!’).

The album’s centrepiece is a splendid piano-laden love ballad in waltz time called ‘Of Course, Isobel’ which comes with just enough ambiguity to withstand a number of possible interpretations. It starts off sounding like a heartfelt plea from father to daughter (‘you don’t write you don’t call….Three women in my life I have loved well/My mother, my wife and, of course, Isobel’), but it could even be a love song to an estranged lover (‘when I tell my side, you made a plaything of my heart/You make love entertainment when for me love is art!’). Either way, it’s an exquisite and beautiful song, satisfying in its conventional resolutions.

Whilst this album has a very pure and comforting sound, the fact that it ends on its most elusive and mysterious song (‘Your Voice Carries’, more reliant on atmosphere than melody) suggests that there are other directions in which Lewis could travel, should she opt to follow these paths. For now, though, ‘Translations’ is an invigorating breath of fresh air.

Old Friends, Sat On A Park Bench Like Bookends

Kevin Ayers - The Unfairground
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera

It’s a special couple of months that sees these two pioneering collaborators (both Soft Machine alumni) both releasing new albums. Wyatt’s output has stayed restlessly creative over recent years, with a series of largely home-recorded albums demonstrating the continued flowering of his remarkable genius. As a composer, he is continually pushing himself in new directions, and he remains one of the most insightful and inventive of pop writers. ‘Cuckooland’ and now ‘Comicopera’ may show him becoming increasingly accessible but he is still completely fearless in his themes and juxtapositions, far from any comfortable or classifiable terrain. Yet, in some ways, it’s the Ayers album, whilst decidedly more conventional, that is the more unexpected. It’s this hermetic figure’s first recording for over fifteen years, and it is a remarkably dignified and unassuming disc. Wyatt himself is among the numerous guests on ‘The Unfairground’, billed amusingly as The Wyattron, although it’s not clear exactly what his contribution entails.

The play on words in Ayers’ chosen title is so obvious that it’s difficult to believe it hasn’t been used before. In fact, it neatly sums up the directness and clarity of this deceptively simple collection. Ayers’ vocal style is delicate, clear and almost conversational, and his melodies take a while to ingrain themselves in the mind. Repeated listens to ‘The Unfairground’ reveal numerous pleasures in its elaborate arrangements and old fashioned dusty shuffles. There’s also something hugely endearing about its ruminative and reflective mood.

Ayers may have been passing the time drinking wine in the South of France, but he clearly hasn’t closed his ears to contemporary talent. Among the guests on this beguiling record are indie-jazz pianist Bill Wells, various members of The Ladybug Transistor, former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci singer Euros Childs and one of the greatest songwriters of the past 20 years in Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake. The songs all benefit from detail in the arrangements, including strings, brass and harmony vocals. These never feel tacked on after the event, but are rather innate contributing factors to the relaxed, lightly entertaining feel of the music.

The jauntiness of the opening ‘Only Heaven Knows’ or the delightfully infectious ‘Walk On Water’ border on twee, but never quite stray into that unpleasant pastiche territory coveted by Belle and Sebastian in their recent work with Trevor Horn. There’s also an important counterweight to be found elsewhere in the murky, dense trudge of ‘Brainstorm’ or the charming Cajun melancholy of ‘Baby Come Home’. The feel of much of this music is restrained and subtle, from the dusty shuffle of ‘Shine A Light’ to the multi-faceted rhythmic adventures of the title track, which bears a strong resemblance to Bob Dylan’s ‘Mozambique’.

Much of ‘The Unfairground’ deals with disappointment and uncertainty, and how age and experience do not by themselves bring greater insight. These are quite brave themes, although the reflective, whimsical humour with which Ayers confronts these subjects ensures that these songs are not overly weighty. Indeed, far from it, for there’s an admirable lightness of touch throughout the album. The resignation of ‘Cold Shoulder’ might be merely weary, or it might be wise (‘old shoulders become cold shoulders, nothing left to lean on’), whilst ‘Friends and Strangers’ neatly encapsulates the difficulties when the boundaries between friendship and love become blurred (‘funny how a situation changes, love can turn the best of friends into strangers’).

Those familiar with the oddball quirkiness Ayers displayed on albums like ‘Whatevershebringswesing’ might well find the relative straightforwardness and unashamed whimsy of ‘The Unfairground’ underwhelming. I have a clear sense that this is one of those delightfully modest albums that is all too easy to underestimate. It’s lovingly crafted, with an intriguing set of guests who have real empathy with Ayers’ unassuming approach.

Robert Wyatt claims that ‘Comicopera’ is about ‘the unpredictable mischief of real life’ and what greater, more sophisticated backdrop for an artistic statement could there be? He also claims that he doesn’t like to limit himself through prior planning or conceptual restrictions, although ‘Comicopera’ is an intelligently structured work neatly divided into three acts. Wyatt has a unique ability to make his work sound simultaneously both unfinished and utterly complete – there is as much space in this music as there is sound, and the low key production values allow for imperfections and real feeling.

So much has been made of Wyatt’s obfuscation or the challenge his music poses to ears more attuned to conventional pop music. His name has even become a verb – to ‘Wyatt’ now refers to the act of deliberately selecting the most outrageous or provocative track on a pub jukebox. Listening to ‘Comicopera’, though, I don’t feel that Wyatt’s music is without broader appeal. Whilst he’s undoubtedly preoccupied with sound in the broadest sense, and also with the traditions of improvisation and harmonic extension not usually explored in conventional pop writing, he has such a sensitive ear for melody and elegant chord progressions that much of the music here is both touching and approachable. Take the brief but charming ‘A Beautiful Peace’ for example, its delicate rustle and strum having an effortless charm. The music on ‘Comicopera’ is also subtle and considerably nuanced however, and therefore lacks the insistence or immediacy of much mainstream pop music. Like the best composition in any genre, it demands close attention, and rewards the effort handsomely.

Much of Wyatt’s last album (the outstanding ‘Cuckooland’) was fuelled by audacious examinations of the Middle East situation. ‘Comicopera’ advances this preoccupation by pivoting on the most original and intelligent expression of anger at the Iraq war any musician has yet mustered. Its second act sees Wyatt playing opposing roles, as a gung-ho bomber and an innocent victim of bombings. Then, in the album’s third (and most unconventional) act, Wyatt abandons the English language for Italian and Spanish, an expression of his perceived political and cultural alienation from the Anglo-American axis. This is a much more lucid, nuanced and powerful expression of dislocation than the uncontrolled anger Neil Young indulged on the massively overrated ‘Living With War’ album last year.

Ultimately, though, ‘Comicopera’ is as much personal as it is political, and even its most confrontational moments build broad pictures from individual perspectives. Wyatt and his wife and co-lyricist Alfreda Benge may be rivalled in 2007 only by Bjork and Feist for their insight into human behaviour. There are love songs here, but they are free from the burden of sentimentality and rarely predictable in their outlook. Sometimes, as much of the emotion and feeling is hidden as it is revealed (I particularly like ‘A.W.O.L’ with its lyrics about ‘thinking in riddles and waving to trains that no longer run’). Yet occasionally, Wyatt and Benge manage to be strikingly direct, as on ‘Just As You Are’ which manages to revisit that well-worn theme of constancy in love without sounding tired or jaded.

This album is so stylistically diverse and scattershot that it shouldn’t hang together nearly as coherently as it does. Its overarching themes and musical preoccupations provide a consistent thread, and there’s an engaging mystery neatly introduced by the eerie interpretation of Anja Garbarek’s ‘Stay Tuned’.

The three act scheme also helps to add shape and form, even if it was, as Wyatt suggests, an afterthought. The first act, subtitled ‘Lost In Noise’ is notable for its smoky, entrancing arrangements focussing on trumpet and saxophone. These performances are not just lovingly arranged (particularly the wonderful ‘Anachronist’ which is both hypnotic and discomforting) but also carefully recorded, capturing the natural live sound and tone of these instruments.

The first part of the middle act most explicitly conjures the comic mood the album’s title suggests. This being a Robert Wyatt album, however, the humour is particularly dry. On the quirky deconstructed blues ‘Be Serious’, he quips ‘how can I express myself when there’s no self to express?’, a peculiar inversion of existentialist philosophy. The act ends with the album’s most politically confrontational material, but is glued together by the endearingly ramshackle instrumental ‘On The Town Square’, essentially an extended improvisation for saxophone and steel pan over just one insistently repeated guitar chord. ‘A Beautiful War’ is devastating in its sardonic cynicism in the face of war, Wyatt playing the role of gleeful bomber privileged with a promise of freedom and security denied to his targets (‘I open the hatch, and I drop the first batch/It’s a shame, I’ll miss the place, but I’ll get to see the film within days…the replay of my beautiful day’). Immediately afterwards, on the brilliantly disorientating ‘Out Of The Blue’, Wyatt switches roles to play the part of the beleaguered victim of war (‘Beyond all understanding you’ve blown my house apart/You set me free…You’ve planted all your everlasting hatred in my heart’). It sounds appropriately confusing and terrifying, but also underlines a sense of anger and fearless righteousness.

The final act, subtitled ‘Away With The Fairies’ seems to enter another world completely, a land that is both romantic and disconcertingly dark, with Wyatt both forsaking the English language and veering into his most inventive musical terrain. ‘Cancion de Julieta’ might be the album’s most difficult moment but it’s also a clear highlight, setting a Lorca poem to appropriately dramatic and evocative music. It builds from just Wyatt’s uniquely conversational intoning set against a discreet double bass glide, into a swirling, malevolent concoction in asymmetrical time. The take on Orphy Robinson’s ‘Pastafari’ is equal parts Steve Reich and Lionel Hampton, far more engaging than a simple interlude. After ‘Fragment’ echoes some of the themes from the first act, the album ends with the Latin-tinged ‘Hasta Siemore Comandante’, which manages to be at once elusive and forthright, foreboding and celebratory.

It would be easy to take Wyatt for granted because he consistently produces music that is this weird and wonderful – it is exactly what his audience expects from him. But let’s be clear – there is no other male solo artist working on this level and nobody this unafraid to combine ideas and sounds that might otherwise be assumed to be in conflict with each other. ‘Comicopera’ is yet another vivid masterpiece in a career that has not yet produced anything less.

Reunion Madness

How unfortunate that the Led Zeppelin reunion has directly coincided with the release of Robert Plant's rather excellent new record with Alison Krauss. Given that Page and Plant performed Led Zep material together, somewhat indifferently, as recently as the late 90s (the only difference now being the participation of John Paul Jones), I'm actually surprised that demand for the reunion show has been quite this massive. People seem perfectly prepared to pay the outrageous asking price (£150 + for one concert is simply obscene), whilst also paying the additional costs involved in travelling substantial distances.

At least with Led Zep, there still seems to be some kind of bond of friendship and mutual empathy between the main parties. The Police reunion hardly seems to have quashed the antipathy between Stewart Copeland and Sting, who seem to have set aside their considerable differences purely for the purpose of making some cold, hard lucre.

Now comes the most ridiculous of them all - the Sex Pistols reuniting yet again! Can there be any spirit of rebellion left in these craggy old rockers? Another trudge through 'God Save The Queen' and 'Anarchy in the UK' at half the original tempos? No thanks. The most galling aspect of this particularly reunion for this writer is its timing - neatly coinciding with yet another anniversary reissue of 'Nevermind The Bollocks...' I still view this as one of the most overrated records of all time - profoundly uninteresting both musically and lyrically, and nowhere near as significant as John Lydon's later work with PiL, which was far more creative, challenging and unexpected. To my ears, the Pistols' music remains stodgy, soulless and ugly. It's no wonder it inspired Noel Gallagher. The assumption that 1976 was the year of punk, and that the Sex Pistols were at its vanguard is a massive assumption that still remains unchallenged. The protest spirit that catalysed punk surely began in the US with Iggy and The Stooges and arguably even The MC5. On this small island we seem obsessed with our capacity for musical and cultural innovation - yet it's so often based substantially on myth-making and distortion. I want to hear something original, fresh and exciting from these shores, not another trip down a memory lane almost entirely devoid of cultural value.

Community Spirit!

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Unexpected Pleasures

Robert Plant/Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

It’s difficult to admit it now, but one of my earliest infatuations as a teenager was with Led Zeppelin. Not so much the quasi-mystical nonsense of ‘Stairway To Heaven’, but rather the primal rush of ‘Communication Breakdown’ or the effortless and thoroughly peculiar melding of Eastern strings and pounding drums on ‘Kashmir’. Since those days, I’ve rather fallen out of love with their considerable legacy and can’t bring myself to care much about the imminent reunion gig, even if Dave Grohl does attempt to fill John Bonham’s enormous drum shoes. Foolishly, I opted to watch Page and Plant’s indulgent tedium over the Super Furry Animals at 1998’s Reading Festival, and much of Robert Plant’s solo work has left me rather cold. ‘Raising Sand’ therefore comes as a curious and entirely gratifying surprise.

It’s not a Plant solo album as such, but rather a collaboration with the extraordinarily popular bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, about whom I am usually very much agnostic. Her own music has tended to sound overly polite and sanitised, the songs often sounding forced rather than hard-lived. Yet her soft, somewhat vulnerable tones here provide a sterling foil for Plant, who is uncharacteristically restrained throughout. Indeed, it’s only on ‘Fortune Teller’ that he even comes close to resembling the sexualised urgency of his Zeppelin vocal performances. There’s only one Plant original here (‘Please Read The Letter’), and even that is cribbed from the Page/Plant album ‘Walking Into Clarksdale’. This is mainly a somewhat studied, but thoroughly easygoing foray into American roots music, neatly melding country, blues and soul into a delicately enchanting and hypnotic hybrid.

Sometimes the sound is comfortingly familiar, with swathes of pedal steel guitar and lightly brushed drums, but in places they veer into unusually eerie, gothic territory. ‘Polly Come Home’ doesn’t sound a million miles away from the harmony-directed minimalism of Low, although the slightly Irish lilt to the melody lends it an additional timeless quality. The superb opener ‘Rich Woman’ crackles and bristles with an oddly reserved energy, whilst Krauss handles the melodic line of ‘Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us’ with masterful subtlety.

The percussion throughout sounds particularly otherworldly and transcendent, perhaps slightly reminiscent of Malcolm Burn’s production work for Emmylou Harris on ‘Red Dirt Girl’ and ‘Stumble Into Grace’, particularly on the haunting take on Tom Waits’ ‘Trampled Rose’. The loose-limbed clatter that glues these songs together also prevents this from being too academic or reverential an exercise.

There’s a relaxed, consummate alchemy between Plant and Krauss that is thoroughly unexpected. Whilst it’s not quite as pure and original a partnership as that of Gram Parsons and Emmylou, it’s both respectful of that particular heritage and keen to develop it in unpredictable directions. The effortless grace of their harmony singing on ‘Stick With Me Baby’ is sublime.

What a shame therefore that Plant is undermining the promotion of this satisfying record by submitting to corporate pressures for a one-off Led Zeppelin reunion show. At least it looks unlikely to become a behemoth tour in the manner of this year’s other reunions (Genesis, The Police). I would rather focus on the quiet and intoxicating majesty of this beautiful record.